What Christmas means to me: A story about family and turkey

Christmas is known as the season of giving, shopping, and glittery decorations, but for me, it holds a stronger meaning for me.

What my typical Christmas feast looks like.

Christmas in my family

Christmas has always been about noisy and boisterous family gatherings! Imagine a 5-room HDB with more than 20 people squeezed in the living room! Christmas is a great excuse to have a family gathering and boy, do we love gatherings! People come and go, relationships blossom and wither but year after year we still look forward to gathering over way too much food.

Turkey for life

When I was working as a cook, I really wanted to try my hand at baking a turkey. A 4, 5kg bird is just way too costly (and massive!) to be an everyday affair, but I really, really wanted to make turkey, so I decided to start a new “tradition”.

One of my turkey creations

Every Christmas eve, the baking of the turkey is the highlight of my December. But once, I could not bake my turkey because I had to work. Eventually, I decided to quit my job so I could continue this tradition. Yes, that is how important this turkey is to me. Besides the satisfaction of baking each turkey successfully, it brings me happiness knowing that our Christmas feast brings family and dear friends together.